Silk Manufacturing in Westbrook

Haskell silk advertisement, Westbrook, ca. 1902

When James Haskell founded his silk company in Westbrook in 1874, American silk mills were proliferating.

Silk manufacturing, which had always been a handcraft, was a mechanized industry by the post Civil War years, powered by American inventions.

By the late 19th century, Haskell and others relied primarily on Japanese raw silk (filament), turning out previously unimaginable quantities of affordable silk goods and ending American reliance on expensive imports.

Before the Civil War, however, American interest in silk production was virtually a cottage industry.

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Cabinet Clyclopaedia, London, 1831

To help launch the American industry to make silk fabrics and become less reliant on foreign silk textiles the Secretary of the Treasury had published an instructional silk manual known as the "Rush Letter" in 1828.

As a beginning it provided instructions on rearing silkworms to make thread for textiles.

It was the first of a flood of informational books, journals and newspaper features on silk that circulated before the Civil War.

Silk skein, Windham, ca. 1840

To demonstrate industriousness, or as a pastime, leisured young women from financially comfortable families often raised a few silk worms, reeled a little silk and even participated in exhibitions.

At the Maine Charitable Mechanics Association exhibition in 1838, Lucia Deane of Biddeford, a young lady "entirely unacquainted with the business" received a diploma for two skeins of white and two black dyed silk skeins.

Martha Cleaveland of Brunswick earned a diploma with her "specimen of sewing silk."

Silk spinner and twister machine, 1839

New machinery to reel and spin silk started to come on the market in the 1830s.

In use in Hiram in 1833, Brooks Patent machine reeled and twisted finished threads.

Advertised in Maine in 1839, Holland's Improved Silk Spinner was "adapted for factories on the most extensive scale" and "for family use, or for persons wishing to manufacture silk in a small way."

During the 1840s, Captain Dillingham of Turner, used water-operated versions of the Dennis Patent Premium Silk Spinner and Twister.

His neighbor, Luther Carey, claimed an output of two thousand skeins of hand sewing thread – used "to make garments independent of foreign nations" – as evidence of progress from dependency on imported silk thread.

Haskell Silk Mill, Westbrook, 1889

Limited pattern weaving of the early days gave way to a product line consisting of always-popular basic staples, including Grosgrain, Faille Francaise, Peau de Soie, Satin Duchesse, Surah, Taffeta and black Alma Royal (for mourning wear).

Charles Fenton returned to Connecticut in 1888. James Haskell died in 1890. Edwin Haskell continued as general manager, with cousins Lemuel Lane as treasurer and William Poole as president.

By the mid 1890s the workforce, half of whom were women, numbered from 150 to 200 depending on the quiet, or busy season.

Spinning room, Haskell Silk Company, Westbrook, 1907

Spinning joins short fibers like cotton and wool into a continuous thread. But reeled silk is already hundreds of yards long.

Spinning silk, called throwing, means closely twisting the strand of raw silk and winding it onto wooden bobbins. From the bobbins two, three, or more these twisted strands are then "doubled" or twisted together.

Several doubled threads are "thrown" (twisted) tightly to make strong warp threads called organzine. Loosely twisted filling threads are called "tram."

Haskell Silk Company puzzle, ca. 1900

In the 1920s Haskell and the entire America silk industry declined rapidly due to unstable raw silk prices, industry overproduction and growing competition from the first man-made fiber — artificial silk — now called rayon.

Haskell went bankrupt and ceased business in 1930, the year Edwin died.

A local attempt to save the mill with help from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation failed. Unknown individuals leased the factory, operated as Westbrook Weaving Mills, advertised throwing and rayon weaving, and vanished from the record by 1935.